Thursday, July 1, 2010

the winner loses all

Here are three things i've been very interested in this week:

First is this George Jones song. Namely, this video and performance of this song. It's a really catchy tune that absolutely infects my brain. Apparently, it's done that to millions of people over the years...but I am one sucker that falls prey to it's trappings. Concerning the video, that make-up job on GJ makes him look like a corpse that crawled out of it's casket during his visitation because he forgot he had this one more tv appearance to do real quick. In a good way. I also really love his body language and the way he moves. Very unique and stylized. I'm also jealous of the drummer. Watch him go!

Second is this live bootleg of a Cass Mccombs show from sometime after "Prefection" came out. This show was recorded at the Hideout in Chicago. It had some pretty glaring phase issues when I originally obtained it, but i've fixed those best I could. There are also some interesting tuning defects, which actually adds quite a bit of character to these recordings at times. These versions of the songs are much more laid back and prettier than the originals. Not better, just different. Also, I'm totally into the intense vibrato he exercises on a couple of these performances. I don't know much about Cass Mccombs, which probably has a lot to do with why I still like his music. Musically speaking, I like the decisions he makes. Makes me want to make some decisions of my own.

Last, this song came up randomly in my headphones while I was half asleep on vacation with my family recently. At first, I had a hard time telling what language it was in (and what planet it was from). But, without waking up, the whole song started to get really clear. I was making out some of the lyrics and could begin to anticipate where the music was going. Then I fell asleep completely. I still remembered the experience in the morning, so I guessed it was worth remembering. The performance here is really awesome. Especially the diction and delivery of the lyrics. really cool.